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This morning my scripture readings included the 43 chapter of Isaiah. I had heard a selection of this chapter earlier this week at my dad’s memorial service. He mentioned these verses many times and one of his favorite words in this passage was the word; “Redeemed.”

To redeem means to; “compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something), to gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment.”

My dad wasn’t a perfect man. He had his habits, hurts, and hangups as we all do. Sunday afternoon, as my mother and I traveled back to her house after meeting the pastoral team who would do his service, I mentioned to my mom that for days all we heard was the good stuff about dad. She responded; “People think he’s a saint!” We both laughed and talked about the myriad of frustrating things dad did that aggravated us so much and the things we did that triggered him.

“The beginning of love is to let the one we love be perfectly themselves, not twist them to fit our own image.
Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”#ThomasMerton

Remembering someone after they’ve passed is to try to hold the whole of them together in our hearts and minds. The good and not so good. The positive and the negative. The stuff we loved and the things which drove us crazy.

Loving each other isn’t about forcing someone to change to meet our expectations or being blind to their faults. It is allowing a fusion of imperfect souls to connect in a deeper way where; “love covers a multitude of sins,” a mountain of aggravation, a collection of experiences that allows each one to maintain their unique identity but also redeems both the loved and the lover and together they are better and greater because of it.

Yesterday I needed to move a pile of garden soil, which was laying on a tarp, from one place in the yard to another. We had saved it for possible recycling but didn’t have to chance to get to it over the winter.

I had an idea to take a rope and run it through the grommets on the tarp. I was hoping was the rope would slide through the grommets, pull the tarp together with the soil inside and be able to slide it across the ground. It didn’t work. The rope pulled the grommets and the tarp together but it didn’t budge. There was too much soil which made it too heavy to move. Instead, one by one the grommets broke free from the tarp and all I had to show for my work was several grommets on the rope with no tarp attached. This meant I had to shovel the dirt into the back of the truck which took a lot of time and energy.

Life can be like my experience with the tarp yesterday. We are weighed down by different things and we’d like to move it, get it out-of-the-way as soon as possible. We look for the quick fix; a book, a seminar, a podcast, a sermon, advice from friends and family. While these may help there are seasons when we’re forced to dig deep, get ourselves dirty and wrestle with our deepest, darkest secrets, sins, weaknesses, hurts and experiences.

Only time, energy and determination will help us remove the heaviest things in our lives which are weighing us down.